It was a messy business, that was for sure. Several CSI’s of the Gotham City Police Department were busy cataloguing all the different blood splatters. Fortunately, the dead bodies in the alley seemed to have been left otherwise intact – they’d just lost a lot of blood. The victims were obviously two of Gotham’s ‘higher class’, fancily dressed as the man and woman were. Pearls were strewn about the alley. An open wallet lay on the ground.

“Would you mind not contaminating my crime scene, Bard?” Detective Vincent Del Arrazio said derisively as he turned around to meet a new arrival. “Oh, Vinnie! Is that any way to talk to your best friend?” Jason Bard lifted the yellow police tape over his head as he sauntered onto the crime scene. The private investigator was dressed in his usual style: a fashionable dark green jacket and trousers, a tucked in white shirt with a smart red tie, complete with a pair of brown leather shoes. Bard smiled as he shifted his weight unto his cane and watched the GCPD do their work.
“I didn’t know we were friends, Bard,” Del Arrazio responded sarcastically as he continued jotting down notes.“We will be when I help you solve this case,” Bard said as he took the cup of coffee of an unsuspecting young GCPD officer passing him by. “You want sugar in yours?”
Del Arrazio smiled wryly. “Anything to get into the GCPD’s business, huh?”“Seeing as I am the sole reason your unit even has a clearance rate, I’d expect a little more trust from you, Vin.” Bard took a sip of his coffee and regretted it immediately. He coughed and wheezed as the scalding liquid made its way down his throat and the private eye nearly lost his footing.
“Don’t die on me, Bard, I’ve got enough cases as it is.”“Imagine how’d I feel,” Bard replied through gasps of breath, “if I were to see you standing over my dead body, with your little notebook.”
“You’d want Crowe on your case?”“I was thinking more along the lines of your partner,” Bard grinned and the two looked to Detective Joely Bartlett, who had crouched down besides the body. The young – and attractive – woman looked up and shook her head.
“Odds are I’d be the one that did you, Jason,” she said, unable to resist a smile. “I’ll take you up on that bet. Winner gets a homemade dinner?”
“Mind cutting to business already, Bard?” Del Arrazio interjected, rolling his eyes.“Oh, I got all the info I needed,” the gumshoe replied as he glanced at Joely Bartlett once more. He then nodded to a passing CSI, who was putting the cover back on his camera’s lense.“How’s it going, Corrigan?” Bard pretended to tip his hat.
Corrigan nodded back. Behind the yellow tape, he lit up a cigarette.
“How much are you going to pay him later for those pictures?” Del Arrazio asked.“Oh, I was thinking about, what, fifty dollars sound all right to you, Jim?” Bard responded with a mock laugh, calling back to Corrigan, who simply gave him a thumbs up.
“Wasn’t it the bribes and the corruption that made you leave the PD, Bard?” Del Arrazio asked, pocketing his notebook once more.“It sure was,” Bard grinned, “but if Corrigan’s going to sell those pictures to anyone, I’d want them to be to me. Wouldn’t you?”
Del Arrazio just sighed and beckoned his partner. “C’mon Jo, let’s get out of here. We’ve got what we need. Let the squints do their jobs.”
“He had a good point,” Bartlett said as she passed Bard. The investigator quickly placed his hand on her arm to stop her from leaving. “Hey Jo, it’s not guys like Corrigan that are the problem,” he said as he looked in her eyes. “They’re just the result of it.”
She gave him a curt nod before gently shaking her arm loose from Bard’s arm.
“See you, Jason,” she said as she pulled the police tape over her and left.“Yeah, see you.”

Bard turned back to the two bodies. The forensics team was still in full swing.